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In November of 1954, the city of Grand Rapids purchased the brewery property for $160,000.
Ten years later, in May of 1964, the ten-unit complex of old brewery buildings was
demolished to make way for urban renewal. Today, a parking lot stands on the spot where
Christoph Kusterer opened his brewery in 1850, and the last vestiges of a once-proud
German-American business are gone forever. |
About the author: Wilhelm
W. Seeger is professor of German at Grand Valley State University. A lifelong
resident of Grand Rapids, he is in the process of researching a book on the city's
German-American community and has been known to sample the products of the brewer's art.
Any questions or comments can be directed to him via e-mail at seegerw@gvsu.edu
Notes:
1. J.C. Furnas, The
Americans: A Social History of the United States, 1587-191.4 (New York:
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1969), p 55.
2. Stanley Barron, Brewed in America (Boston and Toronto, Little, Brown and Company, 1962), pp. 19ff.
3. Ibid. pp. 43ff.
4. Ibid. pp. 113-17.
5. Albert Baxter, History of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan
(New York and Grand Rapids. Munsell and Company, 1891), p. 203.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. William L. Downard, The Cincinnati Brewing Industry. A Social and Economic History (Athens,
Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1973), p. 31.
9. Baxter, History of Grand Rapids, p. 203.
10. Barron, Brewed in America p. 272.
11.Grand Rapids Evening Press, August 7, 1885.
12. Grand Rapids Press, June 30, 1917.
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